Publisher's Notebook
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Women's choir at the 1949 Michigan State Fairgrounds celebration honoring Israel's first anniversary of statehood.
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Come Celebrate Israel!
w
e're back at the Michigan State Fairgrounds in
Detroit, with plenty of reasons to celebrate. If
there is ever an opportunity to "live the moment:'
Thursday, Aug. 21, 3-10 p.m. is it.
The community-wide celebration of Israel's 60th anniver-
sary provides a nostalgic link to Jewish Detroit's past, a joyous
present-day extravaganza and a sobering peek at the Detroit
Jewish community's future — if we do nothing to change its
trajectory.
First, let's remember and enjoy some
of the reasons to celebrate Israel's 60th
anniversary:
The rebirth of the State of Israel
happened in our lifetimes. Today, "next
year in Jerusalem" means buying an
airline ticket.
We continue as Israel's partner in a
remarkable ingathering and absorp-
tion of Jews, many of them refugees
from distressed communities around
the world.
In a dangerous region of autocrats
and absolutists, Israel possesses a
vibrant, noisy, dog-kiss sloppy democracy that aligns with
many deeply held American values.
Israel's high concentration of engineers, physicians, techni-
cians and researchers, trained at some of the finest institu-
tions of learning in the world, are finding cures and discover-
ing techniques that save lives, feed multitudes, quench thirsts
and generate energy without fossil fuels.
Israel has morphed into one of the world's most vibrant
job-creating economies.
As a Detroit Jewish community, we are returning to the
Michigan State Fairgrounds. We are walking in the footsteps
of where our parents and grandparents rallied in celebration
of Israel's first anniversary.
In our current era of digits and micro-communities, we
can do something the good old-fashioned way — en masse,
with more than 10,000 in attendance ... young and aged, reli-
gious and secular, school teacher, physician, industrialist and
Internet technician, all as one.
We are coming together in celebration, not to seek collective
solace after a terrorist attack, a war or kidnapping.
We are sharing Israel and its accomplishments with the
entire Detroit metropolitan area.
Almost 3,000 teen athletes and their parents from around
the country, in the Detroit area for the JCC Maccabi Youth
Games, will be joining the festivities. It's a great opportunity
to showcase the uniqueness of the Detroit Jewish community.
Let's look into our collective crystal ball. Envision Israel on
its 75th anniversary. What do you see? Peaceful neighbors?
The epicenter of the world's water and solar research indus-
tries? A population firmly rooted in democratic ideals while
preserving the state's Jewishness? The hub of our Jewish exis-
tence? What else do you see?
There are many questions about Israel's future. However,
even in the face of current and anticipated threats, there will
be a strong, dynamic Israel to celebrate in 2023.
Now, what about us? What will our Detroit Jewish commu-
nity look like in 2023? From the 2005 Federation demographic
study, we know that outside of Florida, Detroit has the highest
concentration of Jewish elderly of any city in the country. We
also know from the study that Detroit's out migration rate
is approximately three times higher than its in-migration
rate. If we do nothing more than ride the existing trend lines,
Detroit's Jewish community is likely to shrink to less than
40,000, with 40 percent of the population over the age of 65.
Imagine if we threw a 75th anniversary party for Israel in
2023 and there wasn't a large enough, or ambulatory enough,
Detroit Jewish community to show up? Against dramatic odds
-
Publisher Note on page A6
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August 7 • 2008
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